


Meet the Parents

by Robin Hood (kjack89)



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Meeting the Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-17 05:31:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16089050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/Robin%20Hood
Summary: Three vignettes centered on Rafael and Sonny meeting the other's parents.





	Meet the Parents

**Author's Note:**

> These were 3 little drabbles on tumblr and I couldn't figure out what to do with them so I figured...lump 'em together and release them to the wilds of AO3.
> 
> So that's what I've done.
> 
> Usual disclaimer. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

**I. Tessa Carisi**

The first time Tessa Carisi meets Rafael, she _knows_. No, despite what her children may think, she’s not actually omniscient, but she knows her son well enough to know he’s been hiding something.

Hiding some _one_.

And when she swings by the precinct one day because she had to come to Manhattan to see Teresa and it seemed only fair to bring her favorite (and only) son a pan of lasagna (“Because you really are looking too thin these days,” she chides as she slides the three foil-covered pans into the fridge at the precinct as Sonny hovers over her shoulder, torn between amusement and acute embarrassment), she sees the way her son lights up when the well-dressed lawyer makes his way out of the lieutenant’s office.

It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.

Sonny leads her over to introduce her to his lieutenant but Tessa has eyes only for the older man who’s watching her with equal calculation in his expression. Two people who know that the other also knows.

His handshake is firm when they’re finally introduced in a painfully off-hand way. “Oh, and, uh, this is ADA Rafael Barba,” Sonny says, the back of his neck burning red. “He, uh, he works with our team. Sometimes.”

“A pleasure,” Rafael tells her, his voice cool, impersonal.

“Charmed,” Tessa says, matching his tone.

Sonny just looks nervously between the two of them like watching a tennis match and Lt. Benson clears her throat. “Carisi, I hate to impose but I’d love to take some lasagna home to Noah.”

That does the trick — Sonny snaps instantly into food-sharing mode and heads to the breakroom with Lt. Benson, leaving Rafael and Tessa alone.

Tessa clears her throat. “I hope you like lasagna,” she says, and Rafael looks at her.

“Why?” he asks casually.

Too casually.

“You’ll be eating it for a week,” Tessa says calmly.

Rafael’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker, but the very tips of his ears turn slightly red, and Tessa counts it as a small victory. “And while you’re at it,” she adds, as Rafael looks ready to make a hasty exit before implicating himself, “you might want to watch his sugar intake.”

His eyes snap back to hers. “Why?” he asks again, cautiously this time, with an edge of concern.

“The men in his family have a long history of heart disease,” Tessa tells him. “And Lord knows he doesn’t eat well as is.”

Something tightens in Rafael’s face, just a slight narrowing of the eyes, as he watches Carisi pour himself a cup of coffee with at least three packets of sugar inside it. He glances back at Tessa. “It was very nice to meet you,” he says diplomatically before finally taking his leave.

Tessa considers it an even bigger victory.

Three days later she gets a text from Sonny: _Ma what the hell did you tell him?!_

 _Language_ , she scolds in reply, a small grin creeping across her face.

 _He got rid of everything in my apartment with sugar in it!_ Sonny sends back, and she can practically feel his desperation in every keystroke. _EVERYTHING!!!_

 _Bring him to Sunday dinner and I’ll be sure to have some cannoli for you_ , she replies. _And next time, try not to hide your boyfriend from me._

The pause that stretches between texts is so long that Tessa almost fears she’s overstepped her boundaries, but then Sonny texts back, _I’m hoping there won’t be a next time. We’ll be at dinner._

This time, she doesn’t even bother trying to hide her smile.

“You look happy,” Dom comments, glancing up at her.

Tessa sends Sonny a heart emoji and sets her phone on the counter. “Sonny’s bringing his boyfriend to Sunday dinner.”

Dom looks surprised. “I didn’t know he was seeing anyone,” he says, and Tessa leans down to kiss the top of his head.

“I did,” she says simply. “I know everything.”

* * *

 

 

**II. Sunday Dinner**

Barba would not in any way, shape or form characterize any single thing he has done over the past weekend as “trying to get the Carisis to like him” let alone “making a fool of himself”, thank you very much. He absolutely would have tried that vegan restaurant that Teresa can’t stop raving about on the group message between Sonny’s siblings all on his own, eventually, probably. If he did some light reading on cars and Italian cuisine, it was only out of curiosity and definitely not because those were Sonny’s parents’ favorite topics of conversation and he wanted to be prepared. And there is literally nothing more relaxing in the world than a trip on the Staten Island ferry to meet up with Dom and Tessa for lunch with only 45 minutes’ notice because Sonny texted him with a simple _please?_  and Barba was a very, very weak man.

If he changed his outfit four times before Sunday dinner, it was only because he wasn’t entirely certain that the pocket square/tie combo he’d picked was working, that’s all. And certainly not because he was mentally reevaluating every ensemble to ensure it wasn’t too flamboyant, unsure how the Carisi household would take to his usual ostentatious colors.

“I guarantee my family isn’t even going to notice what you’re wearing,” Sonny tells him, amused, after the third outfit change.

“Just because your family has no taste doesn’t mean I still don’t want to look acceptable for my own standards,” Barba sniffs.

He brings a $50 bottle of wine because his mother taught him to be polite, not because he was trying to impress them.

(”With the way my sisters drink, you’d’ve been better off bringing a box,” Sonny cracks, and Barba glares at him as they make their way up the sidewalk to Sonny’s parents’ house.)

And he shakes Dom’s hand and kisses Tessa’s cheek and makes polite smalltalk for the half hour leading up to dinner because he is a Harvard man and some manners developed over numerous alumni garden parties throughout the years are equally transferrable to Staten island living rooms.

He offers to help with cooking and then, after dinner, with clean-up because his grandmother taught him well, nothing more.

“Are you ever gonna relax?” Sonny asks, running a hand lightly down his back as they sit on the couch in the living room, listening to Sonny’s sisters talk over one another.

“I am relaxed,” Barba says through clenched teeth and ignores Sonny when he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

([From: Bella] _Are u ever gonna tell him he doesn’t have to try so hard??? We love him already._

Sonny smirked down at his phone. [From: Sonny] _Nah I think I’ll let him sweat just a little longer._

[From: Bella] _Ur cruel._ )

On the ferry ride home, Sonny wraps his arms around Barba’s waist from behind and rests his chin on Barba’s shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the effort,” Sonny tells him. “But you don’t have to try so hard. They already like you.”

Barba turns to him, doubt clear in his expression. “Are you sure?” he asks, voicing his uncertainty for the first time.

“Positive,” Sonny says, with no hesitation. “Because I love you, and that’s all they care about.”

Barba smiles and stretches up to kiss him. “That’s very sweet,” he says, his smile sharpening into a smirk. “But as a fair warning, it’ll take a hell of a lot more than that to get my mother to like you.”

All of the color drains out of Sonny’s face, and Barba just turns back to the railing, still smirking.

* * *

 

 

**III. Lucia Barba**

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Sonny says earnestly, shaking Lucia Barba’s hand.

She says nothing, merely pursing her lips as she looks him up and down. Then she slides her hand out of his and turns to embrace her son. “Rafael,” she says in greeting.

“Mami,” he returns, followed by, “you promised to be nice.”

“Hmm,” Lucia says dismissively.

“It’s fine,” Sonny tells Rafael in an undertone.

It’s the first of many, _many_ times he says so over the course of dinner.

When Lucia asks him pointedly about his prior dating history, he tells Rafael it’s fine. When she asks about his ambitions outside of the NYPD, he tells him it’s fine. When she asks if, as a cop from Staten Island, he’s a Republican—

“Mami,” Rafael hisses, but Carisi just rests a hand on his knee.

“It’s fine,” he repeats for the umpteenth time before turning back to Lucia. “Actually, Staten Island isn’t as conservative as you might think, and, uh, as the son of a union electrician and a former schoolteacher, I’m pretty sure I was registered as a Democrat from birth.”

He smiles at her but Lucia just nods and takes a sip of her glass of wine. “Tell me,” she starts, her tone suspiciously pleasant, “which is harder for you to reconcile with your Catholic faith, your politics or your sexuality?”

Sonny stares at her, fork halfway to his mouth, and Rafael says something to her in clipped, angry Spanish that, if Sonny was thinking clearer, he’d probably be able to decipher. But Lucia is watching him carefully, something calculating in her expression, something that Sonny _recognizes_ in her expression — the same look her son has when he’s posed a particularly challenging legal quandary and wants to see Sonny work it out.

This is a test.

And luckily, Sonny was always a good test taker.

He sets his fork down and straightens. “It’s fine,” he says once more, raising his voice slightly over Rafael’s increasingly enraged rapid-fire Spanish. “Truth be told, it, uh, it took me awhile to figure it out for myself how exactly to do just that, but uh, I’ve made it work. I’m lucky enough to have a priest who’s pretty open-minded, and lucky that the God I believe in doesn’t make me choose between my belief in Him and my other beliefs.”

He reaches out for Rafael’s hand, lacing their fingers together and smiling at him as if he’s the only thing in the world that matters (because he is, because for Sonny, he always has been). “And doubly lucky that the God I believe in would never make me choose between Him and Rafael.”

Lucia smiles slowly, a slow smirk that looks so much like Rafael that Sonny can’t believe he didn’t figure out what she was trying to do earlier. “He doesn’t back down from a fight, this one,” Lucia tells Barba, sounding satisfied. “You need that in your life.”

She turns her smile back on Sonny. “And Det. Carisi, you should know, if you hurt my son, I will kill you myself.”

“Mami,” Rafael sighs, more exasperated at this point than anything, but Sonny just shrugs.

“Ma’am, no offense, but if I hurt Rafael, you’ll have to get in line to be the one to kill me.”

Lucia laughs, and just like that, the tension is broken.

As they leave later that evening, Lucia gives Sonny a hug. “I’m glad you’re not afraid of me,” she tells him in an undertone.

“Honestly, I’m terrified of you,” Sonny tells her with a laugh.

Lucia’s smile sharpens. “Good,” she says, kissing his cheek. “Remember that. And take care of my Rafael.”

“I intend to,” Sonny assures her.

As they walk up the street, hand in hand, Rafael glances up at Sonny. “See?” he says. “That wasn’t that bad.”

Sonny sucks a breath in through his teeth. “You and I need to have a very long conversation about what exactly ‘that bad’ looks like,” he informs him dryly, even as he pulls Rafael to him and kisses his temple.


End file.
